WikiLeaks XXXV: The Gathering of a Storm — a History of bin Laden in Diplomatic Cables

We’re honored to have Michael Busch dissecting the latest WikiLeaks document dump for Focal Points. This is the thirty-fifth in the series.

Not to be outdone by the emergence of an actual social movement in the Arab world, Osama bin laden reemerged from media obscurity this past weekend, pathetically taking advantage of the spotlight shining on former French-controlled North Africa to issue threats against none other than Nikolas Sarkozy’s proud nation of cheese-eating surrender monkeys. According to reports in the Tehran Times, bin Laden has promised to have French hostages captured last year in Niger killed if French forces are not removed from Afghanistan.

In almost knee-jerk response, the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten published a string of Wikileaked embassy cables concerning bin Laden. Collectively, the series of cables offer a partial timeline of intelligence building by US diplomats on the Saudi terrorist in the years leading up to the attacks of September 11.

Bin Laden first flits across the page in a cable from 1993 describing diplomatic discussions with a prominent Saudi banker who reveals to the Americans that his brother had been a Mujahid in Afghanistan during the resistance fight against Soviet occupation years earlier. The cable reports that while the banker noted the rise of religious conservatism in Saudi Arabia, the country remained “stable” under the firm rule of the royal family. Nevertheless, the banker

did concede that some businessmen do stand out for their support of Islamic groups, citing the example of Usama bin Laden. Although most known for his funding of mujahideen groups in Afghanistan, bin Laden has given money to several Islamic causes throughout the world.

A year later, bin Laden surfaces again in another cable describing impotent Saudi efforts at providing internal security to its people. While the Saudis are portrayed as nothing less than incapable of controlling acts of political violence on their sovereign turf, American diplomats applauded the government’s decision to revoke [sics, as always, courtesy of the cables -- RW]

the citizenship of Osmama bin Laden, a Saudi known to support extremist groups and suspected of financing terrorism in Yemen, Sudan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Lebanon, and the occupied territories.

Unfortunately, the cable also notes “several reports that [the government] s or has been funding terrorist groups in Egypt, Algeria and Israel” as well as indirectly “financing extremist Muslim secessionist groups in the Southern Philippines.”

Around the same time, a cable from State Department headquarters in Washington, DC reported intelligence claims that bin Laden was in eastern Afghanistan, and sought permission from what was then the neutral Nangarhar Shura which controlled the area. The cable relates that when the Shura rejected bin Laden’s request—“Nangarhar officials will not allow ‘these people’ to live in the eastern provinces” because “Afghans were already living in an ‘emergency situation’ and did not need more problems”—bin Laden retreated to Kabul and the protection of the notorious warlord, and later al Qaeda collaborator, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

This intelligence was refined a few months later when, in September 1996, Taliban forces swept through Afghanistan’s Pashtun east on their way to capturing the state. Another cable emanating from Foggy Bottom notes that “recent Taliban advances in eastern Afghanistan may mean that several militant training camps belonging to Hekmatyar…have or will come under Taliban control. Also, there are recurrent reports that Osama bin Laden is still in the eastern provinces.” The headquarters dispatch requests that diplomats reach out to Taliban representatives and ask them “do you know where he is? We hope that you will expel him from territory under your control. The presence of Osama bin laden in Afghanistan is not a positive development for Afghanistan.”

Meanwhile, back in Saudi Arabia, a relative of bin Laden’s was telling American officials they had nothing to worry about. According to this unidentified source, bin Laden is a “simple person easily influenced by others,” and that he had been “brainwashed” by Egyptian radicals. Bin Laden’s turn to zealotry had not gone over well with the family, the source told American officials, and that they had all cut him off completely. The source weirdly speculates that bin Laden was receiving support from Iran, points out that any monies changing hands would likely be funneled “through middlemen, since Usama would not openly maintain ties with a Shia government.” Either way, “Usama is no longer protected by the Saudi government and can now be reached by his enemies,” the unnamed source confidently claimed. “He is finished.”

Jump to nearly two years later, and it becomes evident that the source had basically no idea what he was talking about. In a secret cable from State headquarters, an urgent message from a counterterrorism chief was sent to embassies throughout the Middle East and Central Asia warning of possible imminent attacks against unidentified targets. The cable expresses concern over bin Laden’s call for jihad against US troops in Saudi Arabia and public threats “that an attack could take place in the next few weeks.” The State Department “takes these statements very seriously,” the cable reports, and requests that American embassies secure “diplomatic and military facilities. You may also wish to increase security at US businesses and other potential targets which might be associated with the US.” American diplomats were right to worry. Two months later, al Qaeda operatives carried out devastating bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi which left 200 dead and over 4,000 people injured.

The final cable of the series—dating from spring 2001—provocatively, if briefly, discusses the possibility that the Taliban might be willing to extradite bin Laden to Qatar to face charges in the East African bombings. Describing a meeting between American and Qatari officials in Doha, the cable notes that foreign and prime minister Hamad bin Jasim tells the American ambassador point blank that Qatar has no interest in hosting any trial involving bin Laden unless the Taliban themselves were to approach him with the proposal. As it happened, a “Taliban delegation was arriving in Qatar” that same day, and the “ambassador reminded him that the US is the single largest contributor of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.”

So what happened? The dispatch ends with a classic cliffhanger: “We will get a read out on the Taliban’s visit when it is concluded.” While we’ll have to wait for the details to leak at some later date, we already know that the unfortunate end to this particular chapter unfolds at Pentagon headquarters, across an anonymous field in Pennsylvania, and on the southern tip of Manhattan Island.

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